Teacher who gave question paper to accused held

A day after the SSC Algebra paper was allegedly leaked here, the Ambernath police on Friday arrested school teacher Mukund Bhor, who is also the trustee of the Mandakini Bhor Madhyamik Vidyalaya, Bhaskarnagar, the exam centre from where the paper got out. Mukund had allegedly given the question paper to private tuition teacher Firoz Abdul Majid Khan, who was arrested on Thursday.

Meanwhile, education officers have filed a case against Mangala Thorat, deputy conductor of exams and the principal of the school. Officials said the case was filed against Thorat because she was in charge conducting exams in that school. “Why did she allow Bhor, a primary teacher, to be present in the school at the time of the exams? How did she not see him get out of the school?’’ asked Sarjerao Jadhav, chairperson of the state board. “No members of the management or teachers other than supervisors can be present at an exam centre when the exams are in progress.”

The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary education said they will not conduct any inquiry into the matter. Jadhav said: “Since it is a police case, we don’tneed to conduct an inquiry. The school that served as the exam centre should also probe the persons involved. In this case, the teacher involved is the school owner’s son, which complicates matters.

The board has also not black listed the centre yet. “Students will be allowed to appear for the exams from that centre, but security will be tightened. Flying squads will visit the centre every hour,’’ he said.

Commenting on the probe, Shivshankar Munde, inspector, Ambernath police said: “The police are now investigating if the tuition centre [Brilliant classes] had been involved with other leaks in the past, and how many years the accused had been involved in this business for. We are also yet to understand how the original paper was leaked from the centre,” he added.

SSC officials, however, maintained the paper was not leaked. “The incident occurred between 10.45 am and 11.00 am, when students were already in the exam hall. There is no question of any student getting information about the questions. But we still need to know who all were involved in the racket, and how the paper got out,” said Laxmikant Pande, SSC board official.

The two accused were on Friday produced in court, which remanded them in police custody.